The LINK: 11/23
God’s Beloved People:
TRANSITION 2023 Just as the changing seasons signal a time of transition, Congregational Presbyterian Church is entering a new season. September brought the ending of a longer term ministry and the beginning of a shorter term interim ministry. November brings the ending of an interim ministry and the beginning of a called ministry. Congregations relate as a system. When a pastor leaves (whether by retirement, reassignment, resignation, another call, or other) the departure changes the system. Transitions change patterns. This can be unsettling and exciting. Interim time brings an interim pastor and the congregation itself enters interim time (mission and ministry doesn’t stop, the system changes). Suddenly things are quite different. Fear: the impulse is to put the system back to where it was and return to the old way of doing things. Fear not: if change is embraced, congregations are in a position to learn more about themselves, the future, to prayerfully discern where God is leading them. Interim time provides an opportunity to re-view, re-think, re-evaluate, re-shape, re-new. It is holy time, God’s time, spiritual time, time to be open to move forward in new ways with a new pastor into God’s new day. How unsettling, how exciting.
“So, if any one is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away, see, the new has come.”
NEW CREATION A foundation of our Christian faith is that we worship a God who, in Christ, is continually “doing a new thing.” We are being made new: as individual believers, as a congrega-tion, as the church. As this newness breaks open, we are invited by God to be co-creators, mid-wives, participants, to recognize, receive, live into, this new thing God is doing. Day by day, sea-son by season, we receive and claim new identity that God is creating. Paul writes to the church at Rome that the whole creation longs for this new thing like a woman longing for the birth of her child. God is doing a new thing, not the same old thing again.
“For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.”
CHANGE is not new to us. Our history is about being open to change. Lewiston Presbyterian Church, organized in 1873 in a school house, later built a building in downtown Lewiston. Pilgrim Congregational Church organized in 1904, meeting in a tent, later gathering in a room at the college. In 1939 these two congregations came together as a Federated Congregation. During 1978 a woman pastor, Rev. Muriel Brown, served this congregation. A church family changes. Congregational Presbyterian Church is changing. And that is true in our personal lives, there are births and deaths, arrivals and leavings, changes and transitions, things coming together and things pulling apart, things looked forward to and things feared, things planned and unplanned. Change is a constant in life. Congregations contain a mixture of feelings about change. How we (each one individually and as a congregation) approach that simple word “new” reveals our open-ness and readiness and commitment to new directions in mission and ministry. Discovering and claiming a new identity grounds us in reality and also open up to us possibilities inherent in that newness. Mission. Ministry. Future. Faith give us resilience in times of change.
“Fear not, I am with you. I am your God, let nothing terrify you. I will make you strong and help you; I will protect you and save you.”
FEAR NOT This day and this night are in God’s hands. Therefore, do not be afraid, do not let your hearts be anxious, do not be frightened. Can any one of you add more time to your life by worrying? By fretting in the mirror have you gotten taller? Get outside, get outside of yourself, go into the community, go into the meadows and fields, see the people you meet (they are Christ come to you), look at the birds of the air, smell the earth, breathe the sun. All these, God looks after; all these, God loves. Just as the changing seasons signal a time of transition, Congregational Presbyterian Church is entering a new season. Fear not. God is at work.
“The Lord will protect you from all danger; the Lord will keep you safe. The Lord will protect you as you come and go now and forever.”
ENDINGS │ BEGINNINGS Every ending holds a beginning. Every beginning hold an ending. Welcome Pastor Adam Ogg, may your “coming” be “well.” We greet your arrival to walk with us with hospitality and prayers, “welcome.” And so, together, we go out with good courage not knowing where we go but only that God’s hand is leading us and God’s love is supporting us…
Joyfully Serving As Pastor In The Interim,